


Shattered Shield

by DisposalUnit



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Angst, Case Gone Wrong Aftermath, Crying, Darkfic, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Military, Mission Failure Aftermath, Near Suicide, Night Terrors, Nightmares, Not Really Character Death, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Reese whump, Sleep Disturbance, Thoughts of Suicide, graphic depictions of injury, memories of war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-08
Updated: 2016-08-08
Packaged: 2018-08-07 08:48:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7708612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DisposalUnit/pseuds/DisposalUnit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a case goes badly, John is having night terrors.</p><p>Harold knows that John has been traumatized, and does everything he can to be supportive.</p><p>But he has no idea how traumatized John truly is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shattered Shield

**Author's Note:**

> Please heed the tags! This is very NOT fluffy.

John was face-down in the dirt, his ears ringing. He looked around, struggling to regain his senses and restablish situational awareness. There were bloody, maimed soldiers all around. As his hearing began to return, the sounds of screams reached him, but no gunfire. Hoping that there weren’t any snipers who were just _waiting_ , he staggered to his feet.

He was one of only a half dozen people who appeared to be either uninjured or were ‘walking wounded.’ A dozen more were not in a condition to get up.

He went to the figure nearest him, ten feet away. Bledsoe was clearly dead. The next was Cooper, also deceased. As he approached another casualty, two stark white shafts amid red blood and hanging flesh caught his eye—Femurs, the lower halves blasted away with the rest of the legs, the remaining bone only partially covered with pulpy ribbons of tissue. As John came closer, he saw the terrible damage that shrapnel had done to the man’s torso, and heard gurgling and wheezing in the man’s weakening screams.

John’s knees gave out when he got close enough to make out his fellow soldier’s face.

Finch.

\---

Harold startled awake to find John roughly and haphazardly groping his chest and pelvis in the dark.

“John?!”

“You’re okay! You’ll be okay!” John assured him, terror in his voice. “Just hang on, Finch! Stay with me!”

Finch cried out as he felt the heels of John’s hands pressing down _hard_ where his thighs met his groin, on both sides. This crushing pressure against his flesh and bone was painful in its own rite, but the pang it caused in his bad hip was nearly overwhelming. “John, that hurts!” His heart was pounding from the sudden awakening and pain, his mind still fuzzy from sleep. “What are you—John!” He clutched at John’s wrists, trying to pull or push them away, but not being able to move them a milimeter.

“Stay still!” John commanded. “We’ll get you back to base. Just hang on!”

Finch reached for the lamp on his nightstand.

A click, and their bedroom was illuminated.

John stared down at Finch’s pajama-clad body, his face anguished, breathing heavily.

“John, please let go,” Finch softly pleaded, his voice tight with pain but trying to mask it.

“I have to stop the bleeding! Hold still!”

“John, I am not bleeding,” Finch gently told him. “I’m not injured. We’re in our bedroom. We’re not in any danger.”

John shook his head. “You’re delirious, Finch! You’ve got to trust me. Just hang on.” His eyes were frantic, as though he was trying to convince himself that everything would be all right. “You know I’ll keep you safe, Harold,” he choked. “I’m sorry I didn’t— I won’t let _anything else_ happen to you!”

Finch struggled a bit, trying to relieve some of the pressure that his partner was putting on his bones. “I know, John. You keep me safe. But I need you to release me, now. I’m all right.”

“You’ll bleed out!”

“I won’t!” Finch insisted. “Look, I’ll put my own hands there.” He gently slipped his own hands against John’s, which were fixed like iron pillars pressing down. “You can let go now, John. Let go.”

John hesitantly released the pressure from Harold’s femoral arteries, letting Harold’s hands take the place of his own. Harold moaned with relief as he gently rubbed at the areas.

“I need to get help,” John explained as he got up from the bed. “I’ll get a medic.”

“The medics are already on the way, John. You should lie down next to me and wait. Save your strength for when you need it.”

John stayed standing, unsure.

“That’s an order, soldier!” Finch barked.

John reluctantly lay down as directed, staring up at the ceiling, panting as though he’d run a marathon. “How long till—?”

“—The medics will be here very soon, John. Just rest.”

After several quiet minutes, John came back to reality. He turned his head to look Finch over, and saw the older man biting his lip, his eyes clenched shut, and still rubbing at the areas where John had been crushing him.

“Oh god, I’m sorry...” He hid his face in his hands and turned to face away from Finch.

Finch put his glasses on and rolled on his side to face John’s back. “It’s all right, John. No harm done.” Harold hid his grimace, even though John wasn’t looking. Finch was still in pain, and he would probably bruise, but that didn’t count as _real_ harm. “What can I do?” A few more moments. “John?” No response. “Mr. Reese, please tell me what I can do to help,” Harold gently pleaded.

“Just...” John’s palms fell from his face. Ragged breaths. “Hold me?”

“Of course.” Harold lay on his back and spread his arms. John rolled over and draped himself into the shorter man’s welcoming embrace.

John tried to hold back his tears at first, but with Finch rubbing his back, he was persuaded to let it all out—It was easier for him to cry in the presence of Finch than it was when John was alone. Resting his cheek against the older man’s chest, he could hear Harold’s heartbeat, the most beautiful sound in the world. John paused his sobbing and held his breath every so often, just to hear its steady rhythm—To reassure himself that _this_ was real, that Finch was all right.

Finch didn’t pry, and didn’t prod him to talk. He gently caressed John’s scalp and the back of his neck, rubbed his back, held him tight as the younger man quivered and wept. He reached for the box of tissues on his nightstand and provided John with a steady supply, not worrying a bit about the growing pile of used tissues on the floor, or the wetness soaking his pajama shirt

He didn’t turn off the lamp. He didn’t fall back asleep.

After nearly twenty minutes, John’s sometimes-convulsing sobs had subsided, and his body began to relax.

“Finch...”

Harold squeezed him tighter for a moment, an unspoken invitation.

“...An IED.” John released a shuddering breath. “I was outside Kabul, and an IED... Only it wasn’t Sanchez who—Who... It was _you_ , Finch!” He choked back a wail. “You were hurt so bad.” The tall, muscular, trained killer trembled in Harold’s arms. “You... Your legs and...” A fractured howl broke from his throat as he pressed his face into Finch’s shoulder.

Finch continued to stroke him soothingly, not interrupting, not hurrying him, but listening and being present for him.

“...I’m so sorry, Harold. I hate that I woke you up, again.”

“Don’t be sorry, John. I _want_ to be here for you, in any way that I can.”

It was third night in a row this had happened.

\---

Two weeks prior, a case got FUBAR’ed. Insurmountable problems in the field meant that Finch was powerless to carry out his part of their plan, and, due to a destroyed cellphone, was unable to communicate this information to Reese.

When John came upon the burning remains of the bombed-out BMW, he had _every reason_ to believe that the twisted, blackened mess of flesh and bones, visible in the driver’s seat through the flames, was _Harold_.

It was only a few short minutes later that Finch was finally able to call John with a stolen cellphone. Yes, Harold was alive. Yes, Harold was okay. It was their number who was dead in the car.

 John hadn’t been able to sleep, since then.

Shaw tried to give him medication, but John refused—He needed to be able to spring into action at any moment, or so he thought. After a few nights of restless tossing and turning, dozing only in short spells that always ended with John thrashing himself awake, Finch and Shaw insisted he take some time off from fieldwork, for his safety as well as their own. John still refused drugs to help him sleep, still fearing that something bad would happen while he was out cold.

After another week, his sleep deprivation caught up with him, and the night terrors began.

\---

Harold’s heart ached for John, as he held him close. This dear man’s spirit had been cruelly mauled by war and by merciless government agencies. John had been made to do wicked things with a cold heart, when all he’d ever wanted was to do _good_. That he’d been able to recover, that he could let his innate righteousness shine through in working to save the lives of others...

It was an honor and a privilege for Finch that Reese allowed himself to be so vulnerable in his company. Harold intented do anything in his power to help John heal, even if all he could do was hold him and listen.

John was quiet for several minutes, his ear still pressed to Harold’s chest. “You can turn the light off, if you want. Go back to sleep.”

Harold placed his glasses back on the nightstand and gently traced his fingernails against John’s scalp. “Do not worry about me, my beloved,” he whispered, slowly and solemnly. “Do _you_ want the light off?”

John was motionless.

Harold squeezed him again. “My dearest, John, _please_ tell me, _truthfully_ , what would be best for you.”

“Leave it on, please.”

Harold hugged him tightly. “Don’t hesistate to wake me if you need or want _anything_. I really do mean that. I’m here for you. Always.”

John nodded and raised his head just long enough to kiss Harold’s chest before placing his ear back in the very same spot, over Finch’s heart.

Harold wished that he could tilt his head foreward to kiss John’s brow, but settled for cradling the back of John’s head with his palm. He closed his eyes. “Good night, my love.”

John lay awake. The memories of war, of killing, of torture, of blood and body parts, of the charred corpse he’d thought was Harold... The gore and pain all ran together in his nightmares, confusing him about what was past and what was present, about what wasn’t real and what he could only wish was not.

He couldn’t change the past. He couldn’t go back and save the people he’d wanted to. He could only try to prevent further death, and protect the ones—the _one_ he loved most.

_“Do not worry about me, my beloved.”_

No matter what, he couldn’t let Harold get killed. He’d eagerly give his own life to save Finch. If he failed and Harold died, he’d end himself the first moment he could.

It would be infinitely preferable to surviving one more awful minute like the few he’d experienced at that burning car, being stared at by the empty eye socket of what he’d thought was Harold’s blackening, partial skull.

When they’d reunited an hour later at the loft, John embraced Harold tightly for a very long time, taking a prolonged and tender kiss.

Harold had remarked afterward that John’s kiss smelled a bit like gunfire, but had attributed the odor to John being in close proximity to a burning vehicle. Not wanting to dwell on the loss of their number, or on the grisly scene John had found, Finch had changed the subject.

John never told Finch that a recently-fired pistol had been his mouth, pointed at his brainstem, when he’d called. Or that if Finch had called just a few seconds later, the police would have found an additional body, just outside the flaming car.

He clung to the sleeping Finch in the soft lamplight. The memory of nearly pulling the trigger on himself wasn’t upsetting. In fact, the thought of being dead was oddly soothing.

Harold was the only thing that made John’s existence endurable. John couldn’t bear the idea of continuing to draw breath in a world where Harold did not. He was tormented by terrible thoughts of how Finch might be hurt or killed.

Tonight, it was easier to think of himself being dead.

He slept peacefully for the rest of the night, dreaming of his own death.


End file.
